


hanging around where common kitties play

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: adrien augreste 2020 [23]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien AUGreste 2020, Bakery, Balcony Scene, Gen, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Unrequited Love, this is... probably not what that tag is for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "Sorry.  I can, uh, go."  He turns to leave, tail lashing once before wrapping around his leg, and just before he can leap to the balcony railing Marinette catches his hand.She's biting her lip when he turns back, which just.  Isn't fair.  "Stay.""What?" Adrien asks, staring at her and thinking of how much he loves Ladybug and how much she loves someone else and how much he can't do thattosomeone else.It's a very tangled sort of thought.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: adrien augreste 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860751
Comments: 42
Kudos: 265





	hanging around where common kitties play

**Author's Note:**

> for the bakery prompt for adrien augreste!

The bakery smells like home. 

Adrien tries not to think about that too hard. 

It didn't, at first. It didn't even when he started spending more time with Marinette, when he realised how much he admires her, when he realised that she actually _likes_ him- Marinette, who's turned down at least three different boys in the time he's known her, who could date _anyone_ in their class if she really wanted to, likes _him_. 

And he's in love with Ladybug. He could never hurt Marinette like that; he can't return her feelings when he _knows_ he's in love with someone else. He doesn't have that kind of cruelty in him. 

Suddenly he understands how Ladybug feels. He kinda wishes it was a less visceral lesson. 

But Ladybug's never let that stop them being best friends, and Adrien's not going to let it stop him being friends with Marinette. He sneaks off as Adrien often enough already that it's not much effort to convince Nino to spend some of their stolen days with Marinette and Alya. 

Really. It's not much effort _at all.  
_

If Nino and Alya weren't pretty much attached at the hip (if Hawkmoth hadn't briefly made that _far too literal_ ), Adrien might be worried. As it is, he puts the admiring looks his friends give Marinette in the same mental category as the way he sometimes sees Nino looking at _him_ (he can't hurt Nino, either, Nino's his third friend _ever_ and Adrien _cannot_ hurt him). 

They usually end up at the bakery, because Alya's place is too crowded and Nino's place is too empty and the mansion is not a possibility and also because Tom and Sabine won't stop inviting them all over and feeding them.

Won't stop inviting most of their _class_ over and feeding them. 

Adrien likes it best when it's the four of them, but he's not going to object to spending time with their other classmates, either. He likes getting to know everyone more. He likes Max's video game tournaments and the way Kim challenges everyone to arm wrestling (and loses to Alix over and over and still keeps challenging) and the way Mylene and Juleka start asking for his opinions on makeup once they realise he _has_ opinions on it. 

He still likes it best when it's the four of them, except- 

He starts to miss the bakery more and more often. 

He starts to miss the bakery even when he's lying awake at home at night, unable to sleep, listening to Plagg snore. He starts to _especially_ miss it then. 

Eventually, he finds himself transformed, hovering on Marinette's balcony, wondering what he's doing and if he should knock or not. 

Marinette takes the decision out of his hands when she pokes her head out of the skylight and says, exasperated, "Are you going to skulk out here all _night,_ Chat?" 

He blinks at her. 

Slowly. 

Marinette's eyes soften and she pulls herself the rest of the way onto the balcony, knocking the window shut again with practised ease and gesturing him to a chair. When he doesn't go, frozen in place with embarrassment creeping in on him, she rolls her eyes and hooks her ankle around a second chair and drags it closer before dropping into it herself. "You actually _were_ , weren't you." 

Yes. No. He's not sure. He shouldn't and it's creepy and he shouldn't, but he also doesn't want to go home. 

He tries to smile but it feels wrong. "Why, were you hoping?" 

"To catch a stray sniffing around?" Marinette raises an eyebrow at him, but her grin's not the one he sees when she's battling for first place in one of Max's games or Kim's challenges, it's the one he sees when she's sitting by his side and watching Nino and Alya argue like they've finally remembered how to be mad at each other. 

(Adrien tries to categorise expressions to learn them better later. Marinette's are _hard_ to categorise). 

He puffs out his chest and immediately feels like an idiot for doing it. Still, he can't back down _now,_ he's already committed. "You know me. I've got that wanderlust, gotta walk the scene." 

Marinette snorts, then starts giggling helplessly, bracing her arms on her knees and leaning forward. Adrien's heart skips a beat without his permission. "Oh my god, Chat, are you _seriously-_ " She giggle-snorts again. "Okay, _alley cat,_ I'll play. So is this you telling your friends of the social elite?" Her grin curves her lips again, light sparking and glittering in her eyes, in a challenge of her own. "Or is this _some cute cat you happened to meet?"  
_

He swallows, blinking at the sudden ( _familiar?_ ) sparkle of her eyes as she tosses her head. Some of her hair slips loose from its pigtails. "Well. Your eyes _are_ like sapphires." 

His voice comes out weak, which is understandable because _he didn't mean to say that._

But Marinette laughs again, confident and free in a way he's still not used to hearing, and his traitorous heart stutters a second time. "I cannot _believe_ you are out here quoting Aristocats at me in the middle of the night." 

"It's not the-" Adrien starts to protest, tail lashing, and then reality catches back up with him and he winces. "It... sorta is, isn't it." 

"It _extremely is,_ Chat." 

"Sorry. I can, uh, go." He turns to leave, tail lashing once before wrapping around his leg, and just before he can leap to the balcony railing Marinette catches his hand. 

She's biting her lip when he turns back, which just. Isn't fair. "Stay." 

"What?" Adrien asks, staring at her and thinking of how much he loves Ladybug and how much she loves someone else and how much he can't do that _to_ someone else. 

It's a very tangled sort of thought. 

"Stay," Marinette repeats, taking a step back and drawing him with her without any apparent effort on her part. "It _is_ late, alley cat. There's not much point in you leaving now." 

There is. There definitely is. Home is only a few short pole-vaults away, and he'll be in trouble if it's Nathalie and not the Gorilla who comes to wake him in the morning. 

"I have leftover mille-feuille," Marinette offers, and Adrien stays.   


And goes back.   


And then goes back again.  


He starts spending more days at the bakery as Adrien. He starts spending more nights there as Chat Noir.   


He sneaks guilty glances at Ladybug on patrol, feeling somehow like he's betraying her even though he _knows_ she would encourage him if she knew. But he- he still loves _her,_ it would be easier if he didn't but he _does,_ he can't do that to Marinette. He can't do that to Ladybug.   


"Plagg," he asks, face-down on his bed one night, his arms wrapped around his pillow as he tries and fails to convince himself not to leave for Marinette's.   


But the bakery smells like home. The mansion smells like regret and loneliness, or at least like what Adrien imagines they would smell like, and the bakery smells like home.  


(The mansion smells like death and fear and sadness and- he always cuts his imagination off when he starts to think about any of those).   


"Kid?" Plagg returns casually, tossing a piece of Camembert bigger than his head before swallowing it.   


Adrien isn't even _looking_ at his kwami. He just knows what that specific action sounds like now. He would prefer not to.   


(Except no, he does want to, because it's Plagg and he wouldn't give Plagg up for anything in the world. Plagg's all the best parts of his world).   


"Can you be in love with two people at once?" Adrien asks, dragging his head up off the pillows and making a face at the ring imprint he can feel on his cheek.  


Plagg flits closer and shrugs. "Don't see why not. I love a lot more cheese than just my beloved Camembert."   


"But you like Camembert best," Adrien attempts, despite _already_ feeling like he's rapidly losing control of this conversation. "More than the others."   


Plagg blinks, and it's slow, and Adrien can't help but blink slowly back in answer. He shakes himself as Plagg says, almost thoughtfully, "More than just about all of them, but I wouldn't be opposed to Epoisses sometime."   


Adrien groans and drops flat again. Muffled, he says, "No, Plagg. _No way._ Forget I ever _asked."_  


"Aw, but Adrien-"   


"You know it's actually _banned_ from public transport, right?"   


Plagg's voice comes closer, clearly trying to sound annoyed and landing much closer to amused. "One, no, why would I know that? Two, you hardly ever _use_ public transport."   


"And I would like to be able to continue pretending that is a _choice,_ Plagg."   


So. Plagg's not helpful, not with this. Except for the way he sort of is because as soon as he's finished with his (not-as-bad-as-it-could-be, in retrospect) cheese, he swoops down and says with no hint of judgment, "You wanna transform?"   


_Always, yeah._ Adrien does not say that.   


Adrien does say, "Claws out."   


Marinette leaves the window open for him, by now.  


**Author's Note:**

> hey adrien thats probably _not_ your imagination 
> 
> epoisses is in fact banned from public transport in paris. in most of france. in presumably anywhere anyone has a working nose (i dont i cant smell the camembert ive got) 
> 
> titles from the aristocats title song


End file.
